


pilot to cabin crew

by lilaliacs



Category: Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Crack I guess, M/M, nothing significant happens but its fun and several thousand feet above the ground, plane AU, they're all on a flight to LA woohoo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-10 01:44:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15280845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilaliacs/pseuds/lilaliacs
Summary: “Pilot to cabin crew,” Seongwoo repeats. “I just won a bet against the dashing young gentleman sitting next to me, and convinced him to pay for one of those mini-champagnes for each of you. I repeat, for you Jaehwan, only one mini-champagne for each member of the cabin crew. Enjoy your flight, ladies and gentlemen, this has been your superior and smarter pilot speaking.”Jisung turns his eyes to the ceiling for a second and sighs.





	pilot to cabin crew

**Author's Note:**

> hi, it's 1AM, i attempted to edit this but...eh
> 
> i know nothing about how planes work 
> 
> shoutout to shad, we vaguely talked about this yesterday and now its 1AM and how I spent my friday night haha

“Jihoon, the passenger in 37C--”

“No.”

Jisung blinks at him. Jihoon blinks back, not looking bothered at all. 

“What do you mean, ‘no’?” Jisung asks, not yet exasperated, just genuinely curious. It isn’t often that a member of his crew refuses to do their job, there has to be a story here. 

“The guy sitting in that seat annoys me.” Jihoon replies. “He asked me to explain the TV to him. There’s a whole introduction video on it when you turn it on, Jisung, you can even replay it if you’re too dumb to get it the first time.”

“Please tell me you didn’t say that to his face.”

Jihoon scoffs. “Please, I’m not that unprofessional. I _did_ look at him very judgementally though, before I clicked on the replay button and walked away.” 

He grins, not seemingly aware of anything wrong with his actions. 

Now, Jisung is getting a little bit exasperated. 

“Jihoon.” He sighs. “It is, like, your one job up here to be nice to the passengers.”

“That’s not true.” Jihoon protests and he looks like he’s about to list every other job he has on this aircraft, when suddenly the speakers above them cackle. It’s accompanied by a few quiet groans throughout the cabin, before Seongwoo’s voice filters through. 

“Pilot to cabin crew,” He starts, in that exaggerated professional tone of his, and Jisung already knows that Minhyun did not give his okay for this announcement. Knowing the co-pilot, he had probably tried to wrestle Seongwoo’s hand away from the comms for precisely thirty seconds, before he left him to it, prioritising keeping the plane in the air. Jisung has made a habit of visiting the cockpit as little as possible. It makes him nervous to know how much chaos Seongwoo causes in there, he doesn’t want to actually see it. 

“Pilot to cabin crew,” Seongwoo repeats. “I just won a bet against the dashing young gentleman sitting next to me, and convinced him to pay for one of those mini-champagnes for each of you. I repeat, for you Jaehwan, only one mini-champagne for each member of the cabin crew. Enjoy your flight, ladies and gentlemen, this has been your superior and smarter pilot speaking.” 

Jisung turns his eyes to the ceiling for a second and sighs. He ignores several things while he does so, such as Jihoon snickering, Jaehwan muttering about the way Seongwoo called him out personally as he passes him and an elderly woman seated somewhere behind him expressing her worry about the captain’s qualifications.  
When he looks back at Jihoon, to resume the conversation they were interrupted in, the display they’re standing next to quietly beeps. Seat 37C lights up with a call for the crew, and Jisung takes that as a sign to turn to Jihoon with the sternest gaze he can manage. 

“Go do your job.” 

Jihoon glares at the little red light for a moment, as if trying to will it away, before he deflates a bit. “Alright.” He allows. “But I get your mini-champagne.” 

And then he’s hurrying down the aisle, leaving Jisung to stare after him. 

***

“Minhyun did not agree with this.” Sungwoon states, not directed at anyone in particular. 

A few members of the crew have gathered in front of the small bar in first class, most of them for the free champagne Seongwoo promised them, some just for the fun and to escape the passengers for a while. 

“He never does.” Daniel nods wistfully, while handing his little bottle over to Jaehwan. 

“One bottle per person.” Sungwoon reminds him, but he doesn’t actually care. Jaehwan has done flights far more intoxicated than two mini servings of champagne could get him, and if anything, it would be more amusing for Sungwoon to watch from behind the bar. 

He remembers one time when Jaehwan had held a complete ten minute conversation with a baby right next to the bar, that had been a personal highlight. Another time he had tried to convince Daniel to ballroom dance in the aisles, because that’s totally something you should do on a flying plane. 

“I’m just holding on to Daniel’s for him until he feels like drinking it, right Danny?” Jaehwan winks conspiratorially, and doesn’t lose his spirit even as Daniel just shrugs. 

“Sure.” He says. They all know that Daniel hates champagne. 

“Free booze!” Jinsol cheers as she sidles up next to Daniel, and Sungwoon pointedly ignores Jaehwan downing his own as well as Daniel’s bottle within a few seconds as he hands her her’s.

“What do you guys think they bet about this time?” He asks. 

“Honestly, I keep thinking they have to run out of bets at some point, but they always come up with new ones. Who knows.” Jinsol shrugs. 

“What does the scoreboard say?” 

Sungwoon gets out a small scrap piece of paper and hands it to Daniel. “Seongwoo is leading.” 

“I think Minhyun is letting him win.” Jaehwan weighs in with a thoughtful gaze over Daniel’s shoulder as he adds Seongwoo’s latest win to the score.

“Maybe Seongwoo just isn’t as hopeless as we all think.” Jinsol gives back, leaning over Daniel’s other shoulder. 

It’s quiet before all of them start to laugh. 

“He’s definitely letting him win.” Sungwoon decides. 

***

“I’m not letting you win.” Minhyun repeats for about the fifth time. 

Just as he has done the first four times, Seongwoo narrows his eyes at him and juts out his bottom lip. “But--” He starts, when Minhyun cuts him off.

“You won this bet fair and square, Seongwoo. I couldn’t have done anything about it.” He says it with a little laugh. 

“Alright, maybe I did this time, but you’ve let me win before.” 

Minhyun shrugs. “Perhaps.” 

“Minhyun! My ego is easily bruised, why would you do that?” 

“Because your ego is easily bruised?” Minhyun tries, and it earns him a glare. 

He gives back a wide smile before turning back to the dashboard, checking the cabin pressure manually, an old habit. “You get really excited whenever you win a bet.” He says to the various lights and buttons. “So I let you win sometimes.” 

He can basically hear the wheels in Seongwoo’s head turning, just as he feels the other’s imploring gaze on him without having to look. 

“You let me win because I get excited when I do?” 

Minhyun nods and turns to him with another wide smile after finding the cabin pressure to be normal. “It’s cute.” 

Among the many things Minhyun has noted, filed away and remembered about Seongwoo in their years of being co-captains on this crew, one was this: It’s familiar to him how the blush starts at Seongwoo’s ears and slowly creeps into his cheeks, how he first widens his eyes, then lowers them to the controls, how the tiniest smile, one he couldn’t fight even if he wanted to, makes its way onto his lips. 

Minhyun mirrors this smile as he too turns back to work. Another thing he has filed away as a fact is that, no matter how many of these small smiles Seongwoo smiled in this cabin, they wouldn’t exactly follow them out of it. Seongwoo isn’t one for quiet smiles and soft blushes when it’s not just the two of them. 

Minhyun supposes that’s alright. They have their moments, after all, where it _is_ just the two of them and it’s alright. It’s weird, he supposes, that their actual place of work is where it feels the least like they’re co-workers, but this small bubble of solitude and control panels is the only thing that’s really _their’s_ as in _Minhyun-and-Seongwoo’s_. They don’t really share anything outside of it, have their own circles of friends, they’re own daily routines, and that’s alright.

Minhyun knows all about Seongwoo’s friends of course, just as he knows about Seongwoo’s routines and about the way Seongwoo’s face tenses up when he’s stressed or tired, and the way his fingers tap soft beats on the control panel when he’s in a good mood. 

He knows a lot of things about Seongwoo, and a lot of things about Seongwoo’s life, yet he has accepted a while ago that he’s never really gonna be a part of it outside of this cabin, at least he’d like to think so.

***

Minhyun looks deep in thought as Seongwoo steals a careful look his way. 

It’s unfair, Seongwoo thinks, that Minhyun walks around every day of his life with a face like this. No matter if he frowns, or smiles at Seongwoo like he did a few minutes ago, or if his face is completely blank, not betraying any emotion, he looks like he’s carved from marble and like he shouldn’t really be looked at. Not by Seongwoo at least. He never feels worthy around Minhyun, doesn’t feel like he deserves even the slightest gaze thrown his way. 

And yet Minhyun smiles at him and looks back at him and sometimes Seongwoo even thinks he sees a little bit of his own feelings looking back at him-- But no, thoughts like that are dangerous. 

The air in the cockpit feels stuffy right then, and Seongwoo knows it has nothing to do with the air-pressure, because he just watched Minhyun checking it. 

“So,” He speaks up, just to get some kind of emotional breather. “Nice weather today, huh?” 

Minhyun chuckles. Another thing Seongwoo doesn’t think a mere mortal like him should get to hear. 

“It’s sure nice, flying above all the clouds down there.” 

Seongwoo checks the monitor on his left and realizes that the area they’re flying over is one of the rainiest and unfriendliest of their whole route. Just his luck. 

“Yeah.” He huffs out in an awkward laugh. “But up here it’s pretty nice!” 

“It sure is.” Minhyun muses, pretending like Seongwoo isn’t a total failure in life. 

Not for the first time Seongwoo contemplates how much damage it would do to fling himself out of the front window. Surely not as much as is done to his emotional well-being every minute in this very seat. 

“Why are you like this?” Minhyun asks, and, ah yes, there it is, the question he asks himself every day of his life. It takes him a second to understand that Minhyun isn’t talking about him fundamentally, as a person, just him in this very moment, as an idiot. 

“Like what?” He tries. 

Usually, Minhyun would probably drop it and they would go back to how they usually are, the angel and the low mortal, the prince and the mere peasant, the divine- 

“Awkward.” Minhyun explains. “Quiet. Sometimes you’re like this and I never get why.” 

_Because there’s only so much a simple man can handle._ Seongwoo’s mind supplies. 

“So much of what?”

“You.” Seongwoo replies without thinking, and without realizing that he had spoken out loud, both times. 

Only when Minhyun gets very quiet, does he realize, and he immediately backtracks. 

“I-I mean- That sounded incredibly rude, I didn’t mean, uh… But I also didn’t mean-...I just, uhm, I mean that I- And you- And--” 

“Seongwoo.” Minhyun interrupts him, and it’s in a tone that Seongwoo doesn’t think he’s ever heard him use, heavy and putting a melody to his name that he, unsurprisingly, doesn’t think it’s worthy of. 

“Hm?” He all but squeaks. His ears and cheeks feel hot. 

“Go out with me.” Minhyun continues, and it’s still that same tone of voice. 

“We can’t leave this cabin, Minhyun, we need to fly the plane.” 

“When the plane landed, idiot.” Minhyun says with a small roll of his eyes, but also a glint in them. 

Only then does Seongwoo actually realize what Minhyun said. 

_Go out with me._

“Oh.” 

***

“Pilot to cabin crew.” The speakers cackle. 

First, Jaehwan notes the colourful curses of the gentleman in 11D he just gave a cup of coffee to, because the episode of _Fishing Weekly_ or whatever it was has been interrupted yet again. 

He chuckles, and then he notes that it’s not Seongwoo’s voice on the comms for a change. 

“Pilot to cabin crew,” Minhyun says again, and then: “Someone make sure Sungwoon puts one of the big bottles of champagne in the fridge for me and Seongwoo to take with us as soon as we land.” 

There’s a short pause of static, then: “No, Seongwoo, you can’t just drink it now, we have a plane to fly. What do you mean, ‘Who cares’?- I think the passengers care, Seongwoo. Now shut up so I can end this announcement.” 

Another short pause, then: “Ladies and gentlemen we’re right on course and will arrive at our destination on time. Please enjoy the rest of your flight.” 

As soon as the comms go quiet, Jaehwan looks around until he spots Daniel at the very back of the plane, chatting to Sooyoung. He sets course for him, but is stopped halfway by an elderly lady latching onto his sleeve. 

“Excuse me.” She says belatedly, as if she didn’t just nearly rip out his arm. “Are you sure neither of the pilots is under the influence?” 

“The influence of what?” Is Jaehwan’s first instinct to ask, before he realizes. In his defense, he did drink two mini-champagnes, maybe even a third one after he annoyed Haseul into giving it to him, so he himself is under the influence and not quite up to deal with elderly ladies in seat 18F. He’d much rather deal with his best friend in the very back of the plane. 

“Listen, ma’am, Mr. Ong and Mr. Hwang are two of the best, I’ve been flying with them ever since I started on the job and- You know what that actually means I haven’t really experienced any other pilots, so it doesn’t really matter, but what’s important is that while Seongwoo is annoying and an idiot, and Minhyun is weird and an enabler to Seongwoo’s idiocy- Uh… Where was I going with this?” He blinks at the woman for a second, before snapping his finger. “Ah, yes. It’s as Hyunie said, ma’am, we will arrive at our destination on time. Have a good flight.” 

Without looking back he leaves the lady to her own devices and hurries to where Daniel and Sooyoung are sitting in the back. 

“Our passengers always want to know so many things.” He announces, before flopping down in the seat on Daniel’s other side. 

“It’s your job to tell them these things.” Sooyoung says, and Jaehwan blows a raspberry. 

“It’s your job too, but are you talking to that elderly lady in 18F about Seongwoo and Minhyun’s state of intoxication? No!” 

“What did you tell her?” Daniel asks. 

“Don’t remember.” 

With a sigh, Sooyoung gets out if her seat. “Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one doing her job around here.” She huffs, and walks away, presumably to calm down poor Miss 18F.

“She was just telling me about when she spent a whole 3 hour flight hiding in the bathroom because she didn’t want to deal with Jinsol.” Daniel grins. 

“Yeah, she definitely knows how to do her job.” Jaehwan replies, but there’s no malice behind it. 

Their crew is a little unorthodox with a lot of things but as long as jobs got done and no passengers started yelling, he deems them pretty capable. It’s all a matter of team-effort: Jisung and Haseul get the work done, Sooyoung helps sometimes, Daniel, Jaehwan and Jinsol are there to keep everyone’s spirits up with their delightfulness, and Jihoon, well, Jihoon is certainly there. 

Jaehwan leans back into the seat, deems the position not comfortable enough and shifts until he’s leaning on Daniel’s shoulder. 

Jisung instilled a not-so-firm no cuddling policy for the cabin crew a while back, but usually Jaehwan ignores it. If Jisung should ask, he has a whole speech prepared, making a point about the utmost importance of physical contact, even if you have a certain professionality to maintain while several thousand feet above the ground. 

***

“What do you think Minhyun and Seongwoo need the champagne for?” Daniel asks when Jaehwan doesn’t move for a few moments. He guesses they’ll stay here for a while, so he scoots a little lower in his seat and throws an arm over Jaehwan’s shoulder, while sending out a telepathic apology to Jisung. 

“Well, Minhyun doesn’t drink so I’m guessing it’s for Seongwoo, and Seongwoo only drinks fancy stuff like champagne when he’s very nervous, and he only gets really nervous when it’s about his feelings or Minhyun, so that means...I don’t know what that means.” 

“You think they finally sorted out their weird romantic tension?” 

“Who knows, strange things happen on our day flights.” 

Daniel giggles at the statement. A few years back, Jaehwan and him realized that the weirdest occurrences always happened on the same two day flights they had scheduled every Friday and Tuesday, such as a woman who insisted her pet gerbil had to be taken on a walk around the plane while they were going through turbulences, or an old man well in his 80s who got disastrously drunk on the wine Jaehwan sold him and sobbed into Daniel’s uniform about his wife who had apparently died. He stopped when the woman sitting next to him notified him that she was very much alive and that he was banned from drinking wine ever again. 

Daniel wonders where those people are now. Mostly, he wonders if that pet gerbil is alright. It had probably been his favourite passenger on all the flights this crew had ever taken on, and he’s met some pretty cool people.

In all honesty, even without the crew being as tight-knit as it is, Daniel would probably love his job. Every day is exciting, every flight holds something new- and well, the bonus of having his friends with him for it, that’s just a bonus to gerbils and everything else. 

“You know,” Jaehwan speaks up then and sits upright at the same time. “It’s weird, I’m pretty sure the weather report before we started said we’d come through some turbulences some time around this point of the flight, but it doesn’t seem like-” 

The aircraft swerves upwards momentarily just as he says it, returning to its original position just a second later, then continuing to shake slightly. 

“You jinxed it.” Daniel grins as the seatbelt lights ding to life. 

While he fastens his own, Seongwoo’s voice comes in again over the comms, reminding the passengers to do the same and also letting everyone know that what these turbulences felt like was exactly what love felt like. 

“Oh, it’s definitely something about Minhyun.” Jaehwan laughs next to him. 

“About time.” Daniel nods. He’s going to annoy the two pilots to death as soon as they land, and he’s pretty sure the rest of the crew is going to do the same. Jisung will maybe pretend to leave them their privacy for five minutes, but Daniel knows he’s just as invested in this as the rest of them. He’s read his blog.

***

“Why am I still here?” 

“Because I have a lot of questions.” 

“I answered none of the questions you asked me, when will you stop?” 

“That just brings up more questions!” 

The guy grins up at Jihoon as if he just won the discussion that has been going on for up to ten minutes. Jihoon is getting tired of this. 

“Listen,” He starts. 

“Woojin.” 

“What?” 

“My name is Woojin.” 

“Fine.” Jihoon pinches the bridge of his nose. Listen, Woojin. Can you just say what you actually want to say so I can get back to my job?” 

“What I actually want to say?” Woojin repeats, tilting his head in a very confused way, that is, Jihoon will admit, kind of cute. 

In general he can admit that the passenger in seat 37C is kind of cute, maybe even more than kind of, maybe he saw him during boarding and thought to himself _That’s the hottest guy I have ever seen._

But they have _rules_ about flirting in the workplace. 

(“You can’t do it.” Jisung says. 

“That’s it?” Jihoon asks, at the same time that Sungwoon throws in: “That’s so bland.” 

“That’s it.” Jisung nods. “It’s bland because it’s so simple. Just don’t be unprofessional and flirt with passengers.” 

And with that, he leaves the meeting room. 

Jinsol breaks the silence after a few moments. 

“So what I’m getting here,” She starts. “Is that if the passenger flirts with _you_ it’s totally game.”)

Until now, she hasn’t been proven wrong. Jihoon knows for a fact that she met her girlfriend of a few months on a flight. 

“Yes, what you actually want to say.” Jihoon says. “You’re not subtle.” 

Woojin scrunches up his nose and if Jihoon has to fight the urge to boop it, then that’s his business and his alone. 

“I was trying very hard to be subtle.” Woojin tells him and Jihoon sighs. 

“You called me over seven times in the last two hours.” He informs him. “And not one time did you actually need help with something.” 

“The first time I just wanted a glass of water, that was something I actually needed.” Woojin points out, but Jihoon doesn’t humour him, just raises his eyebrows expectantly. 

“Okay, so I have one last question, then I’ll leave you alone.” Woojin says, and the way he clasps his hands together in his lap makes Jihoon think, (or hope?) that whatever he says next will be what he very obviously had been meaning to ask ever since Jihoon brought him the cursed glass of water. 

“I was wondering if I could get your numb-” 

There’s a sudden swerve of the plane, followed by another one, and Jihoon has managed to get through turbulences far worse than this, but right now he’s not prepared and also bent down slightly to talk to Woojin, and perhaps a little distracted. He doesn’t manage to hold on fast enough and promptly topples over, falling straight into Woojin’s lap rather unceremoniously. 

The seat next to him is empty, and the boy by the window has been fast asleep for about an hour now, and Jihoon would be very glad that no one else has been affected by him crashing into them, but again, he’s distracted. 

“You seem to move fast.” Woojin grins down at him. 

Before Jihoon can snap something back at him, or get up for that matter, the plane swerves upwards again and Seongwoo’s voice drones across the cabin: “Pilot to cabin crew, please make sure to stay seated for however long it takes for us to get through these turbulences… Might be a while, sorry guys.” 

Jihoon thinks he should be sorry. He also thinks that it’s not really Seongwoo’s fault that he’s quite literally on top of an annoyingly attractive guy who is still grinning down at him, but someone has to take the blame. Seongwoo is always a good scrapegoat, in more situations than not he’s at least partially guilty. 

“You should probably sit down and put a seatbelt on.” Woojin says, patting the empty seat next to him invitingly. 

“I’m supposed to go to the back with the rest of the cabin crew.” Jihoon tells him, finally starting to get up. It’s harder than it should be, with how the plane is still shaking and how he’s pointedly trying to touch Woojin as little as possible. 

“It seems very unsafe for you to go all the way back there. I’m just worried for your well-being here. You don’t seem very steady on your feet.” 

Woojin is grinning again, and all Jihoon can think as he narrows his eyes at that annoying snaggletooth peeking out, is that Jisung would be very disappointed in him, and Jinsol very proud. 

He drops down in the empty middle seat. 

***

“I never got your name.” Woojin says as soon as the other is seated. 

“It’s literally right here on my uniform.” He deadpans as he points to the silver name-tag on his chest. _Park Jihoon_. 

“Yeah.” Woojin nods, as if he noticed that before. He’d totally not been too distracted by Jihoon’s face to notice anything about his uniform beyond the fact that its colour really complimented his eyes. “It just seemed rude not to ask.” 

“Okay.” Jihoon says but there’s still a questioning and slightly judgemental raise to one of his eyebrows. 

“Well, Jihoon,” Woojin speaks up again because turbulence doesn’t mix well with awkward silence. “I like the movie selection you offer here, there’s some pretty dope ones.” 

“I have literally nothing to do with that but I’ll be sure to mention it at the next general meeting.” 

“What are you gonna tell them?” 

Jihoon thinks for a second. “ _Mr. Boss, a hot dude on our 11 O’clock flight to LA told me the movie selection we offer on our flights is dope. We should keep up the good work._ ” He says then. He completely ignores the way Woojin chokes on his own spit to add: “I might get some shit for sounding unprofessional though.” 

“That sounded very professional to me.” Woojin brings out when he manages to stop coughing. 

“Oh, I’m sure it did.” Jihoon smiles. 

Maybe this isn’t going as terribly as the bit of logical thought he has left is trying to make him believe. 

“Anyways,” Jihoon adds. “You were in the middle of something before I…” He interrupts himself. “Before the turbulence started.” 

“Right.” Woojin nods, sitting more upright. 

“Right.” Jihoon repeats. 

“As I was saying…” Woojin continues. 

“As you were saying…” Jihoon gives back. 

“Can you stop that? It’s very distracting.” Jihoon nods and gestures for him to resume. “So, as I’ve been trying to say, Uh-” 

“Oh my god.” A voice cuts in from over Jihoon’s shoulder suddenly. “Can you just give him your number or go make out with him in the bathrooms or something, some people are trying to sleep here.” 

The boy, not as asleep as originally thought, throws them what Woojin guesses is supposed to be a glare. It doesn’t come across as remotely threatening because he’s also yawning and still clutching the stuffed cat he used as a pillow before. 

“Sorry.” Woojin says nevertheless. 

Before he can continue, there’s a phone screen shoved into his face. 

_37C_ it reads at the top of the open ‘new contact’ tab, with a colourful string of seemingly random emojis behind it. At least Woojin thinks they’re random, there’s some heart emojis, but also a flame and about three knives, and, weirdly, an eggplant. Woojin hates eggplants. 

“I’m not supposed to give anyone my number on the job.” Jihoon says as Woojin types away on his phone. “But I’m a master of loopholes.” 

The way Jihoon’s knee bounces makes Woojin think that maybe, this really isn’t going half bad and that maybe, Jihoon is at least half as nervous as he is. 

It’s what makes him say: “I don’t think this is a loophole, I just think you’re not as annoyed at the notion of flirting with me as you pretend to be and I also think you don’t care about what you’re not supposed to do on the job.” He gives Jihoon’s phone back with a small lopsided smile. 

It’s then that the seatbelt signs above their heads turn off. 

Jihoon starts to get out of his seat, but doesn’t actually leave before saying: “Alright, you think that.” 

And then he honest-to-god _boops_ Woojin’s nose and leaves for the back of the plane. 

***

“That just happened, huh?” Jinyoung turns to Daehwi as soon as the steward is out of view, leaving only the guy across the aisle, still with a dopey kind of grin on his face. 

“Love is real, Jinyoung.” Daehwi marvels. 

“Why are you of all people surprised?” Jinyoung laughs. Daehwi has been watching _The Notebook_ for the past hour, or at least he’s been trying to. He’s been interrupted numerous times by cabin crew announcements of varying necessity. 

“I’m not surprised, I just like to state facts.” Daehwi sniffs, but Jinyoung can see that his best friend still isn’t quite able to wipe the smile off his own face. 

“Sure.” He allows, raises his hand to poke Daehwi’s cheek, then lets him be. 

The little countdown on the bottom of his screen tells him that they have barely 40 minutes left in their flight and it gets harder to hold the bubbling excitement at bay with each passing minute. 

Daehwi and him have been saving up for this trip ever since 5th grade, have been trying to convince their parents to actually let them fly for just as long, and it feels as unreal now as it felt impossible then to finally be here. 

It’s the summer before their senior year of high school, they’ll be leaving to college in a year -the same one if they’re lucky- and Jinyoung kind of feels like the rest of his life is starting in this plane with weird staff and weirder pilots. 

“Hey.” Daehwi speaks up suddenly. “I think that steward over there is Jaehwan.” 

He points at a man who is currently in an in depth discussion with a passenger about five rows in front of them. Jinyoung is pretty sure he’s seen the same steward talk to the same old lady just before the turbulences started. 

“And?” 

“He’s the one the pilot pointed out. With the champagne.” Daehwi explains, but it doesn’t actually explain anything. 

“And?” Jinyoung asks again. 

“Do you think he’ll give me wine if I tell him I’m 18?”

“Daehwi you don’t even like wine.” 

“It’s just on principle!” 

Daehwi told him before they left that he has a whole list of things they absolutely need to do now that they’re basically-adults-but-not-really and in a foreign city without their parents. He wonders if all of it had as much significance as ‘odering a disgusting alcoholic beverage from a possibly drunk steward on a flight’. 

“You’ll never know if you don’t try, I guess.” 

Jinyoung doesn’t really have a list of things he wants to do on this trip. If he had one, it wouldn’t hold more than one point anyways, and that would be to make sure Daehwi is having as much fun as possible. 

“Excuse me?” Daehwi calls over to the steward. 

Jinyoung has to clasp a hand to his mouth to avoid from laughing out loud at the way Daehwi is trying to make his voice sound deeper. 

“Yes, how can I help you? Please don’t ask me about the pilot’s drinking habits.” 

“I wasn’t going to.” Daehwi assures the man. “I was just going to order something to drink for myself.” 

“That can definitely be arranged, what can I get you?” 

“Some wine please.” Daehwi says, and Jinyoung has to admit he’s quite impressed by the confidence in his voice.

The steward sees right through it, Jinyoung can see it in his face, and he’s ready for number one on Daehwi’s bucket list to be brutally shot down, when the knowing look on the guy’s face morphs into something mischievous. 

“Sure thing, Sir.” He grins, then drops his voice to a whisper. “Do me a favour and don’t try this with any of my colleagues though.” Back to normal volume he says: “I’m the best wine server on board!”

And then he saunters off and Daehwi grins widely at Jinyoung. 

***

“Ladies and gentledudes-- Oh, shut up, Minhyun. We will start our descend shortly. Please remain seated and keep your seatbelts fastened until we get this baby back to the ground, thank you for choosing Wanna Airlines.” 

If there’s one thing Daehwi hates about flights it’s take-off and landing. 

He’s informed Jinyoung about this in detail before they left for the airport, so it’s not a surprise to him when his best friend immediately offers his arm to him to claw onto as the airplane goes into descend. 

Daehwi clings onto Jinyoung until they’re rolling to a stop at their gate, nearly forgetting to release his deathgrip on the small wine bottle as well. 

He hates wine, so he and Jinyoung didn’t really know what to do with it when the steward handed it to them with a conspiratorial wink. After some debating Daehwi ripped a bit of paper out of his notebook and wrote _To: Jaehwan, the best wine server on board_ on it in glitter gel pen. 

He supposes the crew will find it at some point. 

“We’re here.” Jinyoung says for about the fifth time as the airplane halts entirely. “We’re here, Daehwi!” 

“We really are.” Daehwi grins. 

They get out of their seats to get their handbags out of the overhead storage, and only a few minutes later, they pass the crew on their way out of the plane. 

A blonde woman and a very tall, very smiley man are flanking the exit, highfiving everyone who’s up for it. “Thank you for choosing our airline.” The guy says as Daehwi passes him. “I hope you have an amazing rest of your day.” 

Daehwi is pretty sure he’s going to have the best day ever, and the best week ever, and the best senior year and college experience and life ever, but he feels like he shouldn’t tell this unsuspecting steward his whole 30-point-lifeplan, so he tries to put it all into his smile. 

“Have fun in Hong Kong with your boyfriend!” He hears the blond woman say to Jinyoung before they both step out of the aircraft. 

“Oh wow, we barely arrived and Samuel’s counter already started up again.” Daehwi laughs. 

Back in freshman year, Daehwi’s neighbour had started to count how many times him and Jinyoung were mistaken for boyfriends. It was all fun and games, because Daehwi never minded people thinking that, until he had realized that he _really_ didn’t mind people thinking that. But after a brief panic (about half of sophomore year), he decided that it wasn’t that deep. 

And now they’re here, and this vacation is point 3.7 on his 30-point-lifeplan. It’s one of the very important ones on the way to 25.3: His and Jinyoung’s huge fancy wedding. 

Daehwi is fully prepared for everything this trip will throw at him, he decides, as he pulls Jinyoung towards the baggage claim. 

***

Guanlin hasn’t been on a lot of planes in his life, but he’s pretty sure it doesn’t usually go like this. 

For one, there were exceptionally many cabin crew announcements, and they were all exceptionally weird. In the beginning the pilot had ordered someone called Daniel to bring him a bag of pistachios. 

Secondly, the crew was straight up weird. A lady a few rows in front of Guanlin’s seat called for the cabin crew about four times, and what Guanlin caught from the discussion was all about alcohol and the pilots, and he was pretty sure the steward she talked to used at least three puns. The woman who gave out sandwiches halfway through the flight was the most normal crew member he’d been confronted with, but also she threw the sandwich at his head and shot him a very supportive finger gun when he barely managed to catch it in time. (“Haseul, please stop throwing food at the passengers.” The woman accompanying her said, and Haseul gave back that it was the only thing that brought her joy anymore.) 

And lastly, Guanlin just wanted to sleep. He’d been _delighted_ when he found the middle seat of his row to be empty, and he had actually managed to sleep for most of the first half of the flight, but then the guy in the aisle seat had asked for a glass of water, and things went downhill fast from there. 

Guanlin tells himself he did a good deed, snapping at the dude and the steward he was attempting to flirt with. When he left the aircraft behind him, he thought he saw the steward wink. 

Another steward highfived him, and now he’s waiting for his suitcase at baggage claim, and he’s not entirely sure he didn’t dream the whole flight. 

He looks around him, sees two boys that were seated across the aisle a few strides over, and thinks about asking them about some of the pilot’s announcements, whether they heard them too, of if he made them up, but then his eyes catch onto something behind them. 

Two men, both of them pilots judging from their uniforms, are passing by. The taller of the two is carrying a bottle of champagne, while the other is lamenting: “Yes, I’m aware that ‘gentledudes’ isn’t a word, Minhyun, but you know what? Language is dumb, it’s manmade, and sometimes you just have to shake it up a little, have a little fun-” 

Guanlin turns back to the conveyor belt. Maybe his imagination isn’t as vivid as he suspected after all. 

“How was your flight?” His aunt asks him ten minutes later when they’re putting his suitcase into the trunk. 

“Pretty cool.” He allows. 

He wonders if the same crew will be on his flight back home. He’s not quite sure if he’s excited or scared.

**Author's Note:**

> my twt is lilaliacs and my cc fullstar im too tired to link them but they're there if you have questions!! so is the comment box!!!! <3


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